Top 5 Things to Know in The Market on Friday

These are the top 5 things you need to know in financial markets on Friday, May 17

Beijing Growls, the Yuan Falls

China’s currency fell to its lowest against the dollar in six months after Beijing hardened its rhetoric in the trade stand-off with the U.S.

The dollar rose to 6.9136 yuan in the official onshore market, which is tightly controlled by the Chinese central bank.

The offshore yuan fell to as low as 6.9491, after the state-owned news agency Xinhua and newspaper People’s Daily published an opinion column saying that “We can’t see the U.S. has any substantial sincerity in pushing forward the talks” and accusing the U.S. of “tricks” to manipulate the talks, in what appeared to be a reference to Washington’s treatment of telecoms company Huawei.

2. Wall Street Set to Open Lower

Trade war worries are set to push U.S. Stocks lower again at the open Friday, on course for their first back-to-back weekly loss in 2019.

At 05:30 AM ET, the S&P 500 futures contract was down 10.9 points or 0.4%, the Dow futures contract was down 89 points, or 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 contract was down 36 points, or 0.5%

China’s stock market had fallen 2.5% during its Friday session. European bourses also opened weaker but pared losses to trade mixed by late morning.

3. Oil Marches Higher on Iran Tensions

In contrast to stocks, crude oil continues to march higher, as fears of conflict between the U.S. and Iran more than outweigh expectations of a hit to demand from the trade dispute.

As of 5:45 AM ET, U.S. crude oil futures were up 43 cents, or. 0.7%, at $63.30 a barrel, only slightly off an intra-day high of $63.41. International Brent blend futures were up 0.4% at $72.89 a barrel.

Prices were supported by reports that Russia had complied with its obligations in April under its output restraint deal with OPEC. That will improve the tone at this weekend’s informal market monitoring session. The so-called “OPEC+” group is scheduled to decide on whether to extend the agreement at a ministerial meeting next month.

4. Pinterest Shocks, Nvidia Rocks

Shares in Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) are set for a rocky ride Friday after the company reported disappointed quarterly results after the closing bell on Thursday. The shares fell 17% in after-hours trading as the company reported a net loss nearly three times consensus estimates.

By contrast, chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is called to open higher after sticking to its forecast of a recovery in the chip market in the second half of the year.

5. Amazon Gets Into Food Delivery

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) signalled it's getting into the food delivery business with a $575 million investment in privately-owned and U.K.-based Deliveroo.

That’s potentially bad news for Uber (NYSE:UBER), as it means more competition for its UberEats business. Deliveroo’s biggest competitors in Europe, U.K.-based Just Eat (LON:JE) and Berlin-based Delivery Hero AG (DE:DHER), fell 7% and 3.2% respectively on the news in the European morning. Uber had reportedly looked itself at investing in Deliveroo before going public.

Related Articles

EU removes Bermuda, Aruba, Barbados from tax haven blacklist

Turkey says U.S. scrapping trade deal contradicts goals

China's central bank won't let yuan weaken past 7 to the dollar: sources